In general, in a type of motor vehicle such as an off-road car or the like shown in FIG. 13, a base table having a plurality of stud bolts protruding therefrom is provided in a rear portion of a vehicle body B. A spare tire is mounted to the rear portion of the vehicle body B by inserting the stud bolts through bolt holes in a tire wheel and secured using nuts. The spare tire is then covered by a tire cover C.
A conventional spare tire cover typically includes a cup-shaped hard top cover that extends across the rear face of the spare tire and part of the way along the edge of the spare tire up to a tread portion. A flexible rear cover is integrally attached to the peripheral edge of the hard cover adjacent the tread portion of the spare tire and is formed in a doughnut shape with a rubber band for elastically drawing together a center opening. In this way, the flexible cover extends from the peripheral edge of the hard cover along the edge of the spare tire and across part of the face of the spare tire facing towards the rear portion of the vehicle body. (Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 4-60785).
Because the top cover is hard and bulky, it is difficult and time consuming to integrally attach the top cover and the flexible rear cover together. The seam between the top cover and the rear cover is also exposed on an exterior portion of the spare tire cover. Further, it is necessary to use the rubber band to draw together and expand the center opening of the rear cover every time the spare tire cover is to be attached and detached. This is also quite time consuming.
In order to make it easy to attach and detach the spare tire cover, the spare tire cover can be modified so that zipper teeth tapes are respectively attached to the outer peripheral edges of the hard top cover and the flexible rear cover. A slide fastener is provided, and a rubber molding can be used to cover the seam between the two parts of the spare tire cover by overlapping with a side of the flexible rear cover (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-71270).
Even this is not acceptable because the zipper teeth tape still has to be sewn into the hard and bulky top cover.
A main object of the present invention is to provide a spare tire cover which can be constructed on the basis of a simple operation without the need to sew the flexible rear cover or a zipper teeth tape to the large and bulky hard top cover. The rear cover is integrally attached to the top cover on the basis of a strong structure and the spare tire cover has a good appearance.
In addition, another object of the present invention is to provide a spare tire cover which can prevent noise or the like from being generated due to a friction between the top cover and the tire, and can be further easily attached and detached.